This invention relates to musical instruments of the class of violins.
The classical construction of violin, which is some hundreds of years old, and famous for beauty of its tone and design, has a complex shape, is the product of fine materials, long hours of painstaking effort by skilled craftsmen, and extended periods of aging and adjustment, all of which results in a costly instrument. Such a violin requires careful handling and must be protected against temperature extremes and high humidity.
The classical violin also makes heavy demands on the player. The violin must be retained under the chin and so held that the left hand is sufficiently free to move back and forth along the neck of the instrument with corresponding placement of the fingers along the fingering board. This holding of the violin between the chin and shoulder is not only fatiguing, but may be so painful that it is impossible for the elderly and extremely discouraging to the young. The fingering at the highest notes is extremely difficult to reach, and effectively impossible for many of the young and old, due to the width of the forward edge of the sounding box at the neck. One solution to this problem is described in applicant's patent U.S. Pat. No. 3,822,628. Other attempts to solve these problems (e.g., U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,136,197 and 1,303,466) without substantial changes in the design of the violin have not been successful.
The classical violin receives bridge stresses on the upper sounding box surface and has the central symmetrical cutaway parts to enable bowing, which results in a weakening of the sounding box in the vicinity of the bridge where the tensioned strings are supported.